Not only am I having trouble selling my Boston Whaler, now, this Saturday afternoon, there are two tropical storms headed towards south Florida: Ana and Bill.
Ana’s projected path looks like this:
I live just above the T in Thursday. What this picture shows, to those of you who have never had the privilege of dealing with these things, is that the dark green circle with tits represent the center of the storm. The larger green circle represents the area where the center of the storm could be at the times shown. The strength of the storm’s winds diminishes the further away from the center but those green circles are pretty good at determining where you can expect to get a lot of rain. The picture above is a guess drawn from computer models that are shown in drawings like this one:
Each of those lines are guesses to where the center of the storm might be as time progresses. As you can see right now the computer guesses show the eye of the storm passing well south of us, but, like reports of traffic on the Interstate during rush hour, it’s subject to change at any moment. One thing for sure is that when a storm tracks south of the Florida peninsula it enters the Gulf of Mexico and someone is going to get creamed for certain.
Bill looks like this right now:
The change in color of the dark ball with tits represents the current guess as to what the strength of the storm is expected to be. As you can see it changes from green (37 to 73 mph) tropical storm force winds to yellow (74-95 mph) on Wednesday which is a Category 1 Hurricane and to Orange (96 to 110 mph) or Category 2 on Thursday.
Bill’s computer model at this time looks like this:
So while Bill seems to possibly be the more threatening storm at this moment most of the models show a strong possibility of it swinging northward except for that pesky white line.
My friends are hoping that one of the storms hits us since storms mean damage and damage = repair work and the state of the construction industry has really been in the dumper for the last year and a half and headed nowhere.
The panic at the stores hasn’t hit yet. That’s when people decide at the last minute to buy hurricane supplies. My roommate and I are in pretty good shape. We already have a pantry full of food. We would have to lay in some bottled water and top off a couple of gas cans for the car and the generator. A tropical storm can have the electricity shut off for a day or two. After Hurricane Wilma we didn’t have electricity here at the house for almost a week, and the water was off for two days. But with the generator we don’t have to worry. We’ll have refrigeration, television and fans. There won’t be any air conditioning and the stove is electric. However prior to Wilma I bought a two-burner RV stove that connects to a 20 lb propane bottle so we’ll be able to have hot meals.
People rarely think about their water supply for anything other than drinking and cooking. Growing up on Cape Cod where winter Nor’easters and the occasional hurricane would shut the electricity off regularly one precaution my mom would take was to fill the bathtub to the brim. Back then we didn’t have Town Water. Every home had its own well and when the electricity went out so did the water supply. Once the water supply is cut off you only get to flush the toilet ONCE! Then what are you going to do? That’s where the bathtub full of water comes in. You also have to wash up after cooking and since it’s hot here you also need to take a shower.
We have two solar showers like this:
You fill it with water and lay it out in the sun. In a couple of hours the water is extremely hot, but at least you’re not taking sponge baths or using up propane to heat water to wash yourself with.
That’s how it stands at the moment. I’ll keep you posted.
One More Good Adventure 